Some iconoclastic business leaders, like Tim Martin at JD Wetherspoon and Andrew Perloff, at the property firm Panther Securities, love to cock a snook at the government of the day, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Most businesses keep their company statements as neutral as possible.

So one can only imagine the fury in the boardroom at Huawei, the telecoms equipment maker, if its statement today is anything to go by.

Attracting its ire was the latest policy initiative from the Trump administration to try and stymie its business.

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Donald Trump believes Huawei has been instrumental in breaches of cybersecurity in the past - allegations denied by the Chinese company.

A year ago, the US government placed Huawei on the its commerce department's so-called "entity list", effectively barring it from buying technology from American companies, such as Google, without a licence.

Last Friday, on the first anniversary of that move, the White House stepped up pressure on Huawei by barring foreign chip manufacturers who use American software and technology from making products available to Huawei.

The measure reflects the Trump administration's concern that too many American companies were getting around the ban by continuing to supply Huawei using parts built overseas.

It is far more draconian than the original measure because it threatens to cut off Huawei's supply of the chips used in its base stations, servers and smart phones.

In response, Huawei said it "categorically opposed" the move, which targeted it specifically.

The company added: "In its relentless pursuit to tighten its stranglehold on our company, the US government has decided to proceed and completely ignore the concerns of many companies and industry associations.

"This decision was arbitrary and pernicious, and threatens to undermine the entire industry worldwide.

Image:The US placed Huawei on its 'entity list' last year

"This new rule will impact the expansion, maintenance, and continuous operations of networks worth hundreds of billions of dollars that we have rolled out in more than 170 countries.

"It will also impact communications services for the more than 3 billion people who use Huawei products and services worldwide.

"To attack a leading company from another country, the US government has intentionally turned its back on the interests of Huawei's customers and consumers."

Huawei went on to say that the decision would not just affect Huawei but a wide number of global industries.

It said that, in the long run, the measure would "damage the trust and collaboration within the global semiconductor industry which many industries depend on".

The company went on: "The US is leveraging its own technological strengths to crush companies outside its own borders.

"This will only serve to undermine the trust international companies place in US technology and supply chains.

"Ultimately, this will harm US interests."

Speaking at the company's annual analyst conference in Shenzen, company chairman Guo Ping warned that the measure left Huawei facing a long-term fight for its survival.

He added: "We will now work hard to figure out how to survive.

"Survival is the keyword for us now."

Huawei's furious response to the Trump administration's latest measures feel like something more serious than the usual heat and bluster that has surrounded the US-China trade war.

It is rare indeed for a company chairman to say publicly that the survival of the business is at stake.

It will also be interesting to see how American companies doing business with Huawei react to the measure.

They have not responded positively in the past to Mr Trump's assaults on Huawei: FedEx, for example, actually filed a lawsuit against the US commerce department after last year's measures on the basis that it would be forced to "unreasonably police" the contents of its parcels and packages that it delivers.

Two leading chip designers, Qualcomm and Micron Technology, were quick to resume shipments of goods to Huawei last year by sourcing products made outside the US.

This latest measure will hurt their sales to Huawei - which spent $18.7bn with American suppliers last year - and that is even before taking into account possible retaliatory measures from Beijing.

Around half of Qualcomm's sales last year came from China, particularly in the 5G space, while the company supplies a number of important equipment makers other than Huawei.

Other US companies likely to get caught in the crossfire include Apple - which derives around one-sixth of its global sales from China.

Global Times, a state-run Chinese newspaper, reported at the weekend that Beijing is likely to place US companies on an "unreliable entity list" of its own with US firms targeted potentially including Apple and Cisco Systems.

This is something of which Washington is keenly aware: the Global Times noted that, since first imposing sanctions on Huawei a year ago, the US government has extended a temporary licence to the Chinese company five times - reflecting the highly integrated nature of supply chains on which Huawei and many American companies are a part.

The paper added: "The US government has to do so [issue a temporary licence] not for the sake of Huawei but for the business interests of many US companies."

The integrated nature of these supply chains also raises another big question - the extent to which this latest measure by the Trump administration poses a threat to telecoms networks elsewhere around the world.

A further question is how long it will take to reconfigure its business in the face of what one news organisation was today describing as "Trump's regulatory sledgehammer".

Mr Guo said today that the company had developed a "tougher skin" during the last year and few would bet against it developing semiconductor technology over time.

On that basis, the Trump administration may unwittingly be aiding and abetting China's development of a successful industry of its own in semiconductors, a market in which the US is currently world leader.

In the meantime, this escalation in hostilities between the US and China not only threatens to hurt the profitability of many American companies, it may also harm the development of 5G networks elsewhere.